Entice Designer 0.8.2 release

[John Reimer]

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:37:39 +0900, Mike Parker wrote:

> Saaa wrote:
> 
> 
>> How does 'making everything work nicely even though they didn't have to' 
>> make you think they were willing to make OpenGL a 2th class citizen?
>> The whole confusion started when microsoft announced the use of dx10 for the 
>> ui and people expecting they would probably drop OpenGL as this seemed the 
>> easiest option for microsoft.
> 
> The problem was that they initially said that Windowed OpenGL apps would 
> automatically cause Aeroglass (or whatever they call it) to be shutoff 
> upon launching. This caused a stir among OpenGL developers (and there 
> was a lot of misinformation and speculation in the beginning) because 
> they would be the ones getting support calls from clueless users ("Why 
> does your app break Windows?") There was never any concern about OpenGL 
> being dropped. All of this is well documented in a lengthy forum 
> discussion at opengl.org.
> 
> 
>> And in the end it still doesn't work like in XP: it is like wine does dx: 
>> translating all calls.
> 
> That's just the stock drivers. Windows XP and earlier shipped with a 
> software OpenGL driver that implemented version 1.1 of the 
> specification. On machines with broken graphics card drivers (or no 
> graphics card), this is the version that is loaded. Vista offers the 
> same version as well as a new driver that implements the 1.4 spec (with 
> no, or limited, extensions) and is implemented on top of DirectX. 
> However, graphics card vendors supply drivers that provide raw OpenGL 
> access so that apps can take full advantage of all of the latest OpenGL 
> features and not worry about a DX translation layer.
> 
> So in practice, the majority of OpenGL applications will be running on 
> OEM drivers and not the MS driver. Unfortunately, the driver 
> architecture of Vista is supposedly a PITA to work with. It took NVIDIA 
> several tries to get it right and AFAIK ATI is still having difficulties 
> with buggy drivers. I've also seen evidence that, except for some 
> popular applications that MS special-cased, many OpenGL games and other 
> apps suffer a performance hit on Vista compared to XP. This might change 
> as the graphics card vendors enhance their Vista drivers, but it isn't 
> going to happen overnight.
> 
> The audio situation is atrocious as well. Any old apps you have that use 
> DirectAudio/Sound/Music will no longer have functioning EAX or hardware 
> acceleration. As far as games go, that's a lot of titles.
> 
> There's a lot to dislike in Vista. I personally won't be downgrading to 
> it. When XP is no longer supported and becomes a PITA to use, I'll be 
> making a more permanent move to Linux. I don't want draconian 
> anti-piracy and security measures forced down my throat, nor do I want 
> to upgrade my hardware just for an OS. I'll also be primarily targeting 
> Mac and Linux for my software development. I don't need the support 
> headaches that will inevitably come from non-tech savvy users when they 
> see scary dialog boxes pop up and get the impression that my 
> applications are spyware. Or when they are running buggy graphics 
> drivers that they haven't updated since they first installed Vista.
> 
> If you're happy with Vista, more power to you. I have nothing against 
> MS, but Vista is pile of crap.


Whaaa?  Did I hear Mike Parker say that he will move to Linux?!  Wow! 
Never thought I'd hear that.  :-)

-JJR